Author Archives: Michelle Ackers

Social media and paid search campaigns are a great way to create awareness and attract traffic to your website to boost bookings, particularly if you have a special offer or you have a seasonal campaign in mind. 

Let’s look at the key components for planning a campaign and apply it to a Mother's Day campaign. If you follow this basic approach each time, you will find it easy to build and implement campaigns regularly to meet any marketing objective and it will become a key tool for marketing your tourism business.

1. Identify your Target Audience 

Determine who your target audience is and what they might be interested in. In the case of a Mother’s Day campaign your target audience may be anyone with a Mum living in New Zealand (or you may break it down by region). With...

If you are looking for truly effective ways to attract bookings, then the answer will lie in understanding the process your target customers go through to make a booking. Having insight to this decision process then allows you to plan a marketing strategy that will resonate with travellers to achieve bookings time and time again!

This brings us to "The 5 Stages of Travel".

Foundation for Marketing: A Travel Cycle

Tourism and travel is the second most common reason why people use the internet. It's an incredibly fast and reliable way of sourcing information about travel destinations, and making the necessary bookings.

As the internet is so highly utilised for travel and tourism, Google spent two years researching the travel experience. They found that: 

• Almost all...

Tomahawk has promoted two key members of their team to strengthen its leadership and manage growth in the business for 2023. 

Renee Goodsell, previously Head of Digital & Engagement, now heads up the entire team as General Manager. Renee’s strong leadership and digital marketing skills at Tomahawk have been evident for several years, so this natural progression is no surprise, and will provide a sturdy foundation for the company as it continues to be a leader in providing tourism digital and marketing services.  

Tomahawks’ Digital Performance Manager, Regan Northwood, has quickly cemented her leadership abilities and earned a promotion to Operations Manager to lead the digital performance and delivery teams.  

Renee is excited about what 2023 and beyond will bring,...

• Tomahawk delivered 100 new websites for tourism businesses to improve their online presence in the last 18 months

• Tourism businesses invested in their digital presence to rebrand, pivot to a new market or prepare for the resurgence in tourism

• Customers reaping the rewards of their investments

Tomahawk has quietly and confidently improved the online performance of tourism in New Zealand by delivering 100 new websites for tourism customers in the last 18 months.

When lockdowns and travel restrictions brought New Zealand tourism to a standstill, many accommodation and activity providers utilised the slow period to engage Tomahawk—which specialises in tourism—to improve their online presence in preparation for restrictions lifting. 

Funding by...

All-inclusive packages and Gift Vouchers are a popular and growing trend in tourism again! Travellers love the convenience and ease of booking that two-night romance package that includes a sunset cruise and dinner or that super combo hike and bike tour in just one click.

And with the new ‘revenge travel’ mindset post covid and Tourism New Zealand’s on-going voucher promotion, buying Gift Vouchers as a present for experiences and travel is hitting an all-time high.

Step One

So how can you benefit from these trends? First, find out if your booking engine has Gift Voucher capability and “upsell/add-on/packaging capability. If not, Tomahawk can help with a free Gift Voucher Module.

Step Two

The second step is to create irresistible packages that add value to the current...

TikTok is an incredibly fast growing social media phenomenon that most businesses have yet to consider as part of their marketing and social media strategy. For many, they consider "it's just for teens". This is no longer the case with the 35+ age group becoming a fast-growing segment for the platform.

To give you more insight into this platform, with the why and how you can harness it as your next marketing opportunity, we have developed this "TikTok for Tourism" eBook.

Download eBook